Lifeboat Foundation

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Imagine looking out your window to see an eerie green glow resonating from your neighbor’s shed. Or seeing government trucks being loaded with barrels marked radioactive by men dressed in hazmat suits outside your home.

The residents of Golf Manor, Michigan, don’t have to imagine it, because in 1995, a young teenage boy built a nuclear breeder reactor in his mother’s potting shed, an idea he came up with while working on his Atomic Energy merit badge in attempt to earn Eagle Scout status.

Continue reading “That time a Boy Scout built a nuclear reactor out of common household items” »

How true?

This video is about driverless cars and why China could be ahead of the world in self-driving car technology. We talk about how they are the biggest adopters of autonomous vehicles and how one day Chinese companies could be giving us a future of true autonomous travel. We also look at the issues that may set China back. Let’s take a look at why.

Continue reading “Why China is dominating the world in driverless cars” »

Yamaha has finally unveiled its new Yamaha YDX MORO electric mountain bike line. The new models feature Yamaha’s latest mid-drive e-bike motor and a brand new frame design unlike anything we’ve seen before.

What do the loopy straws that children like to sip drinks through have in common with cutting-edge science? Ask Ryan Murphy and his colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where the team has thought up a creative way to explore the properties of fluids under extreme conditions.

The team invented a device that can push fluids through a narrow tube at the velocity of a car hurtling down a rural interstate — about 110 km per hour. This might not sound overly fast to a road tripper, but the tube’s inner diameter is typically 100 micrometers — about the thickness of a human hair. Scaled up, that would be like a train hurtling through a subway tunnel about 100 times faster than a rocket blasting its way into orbit.

To add to the fun, the meter-long tube is coiled up like a spring, so the fluid careens around loop after three-centimeter-wide loop, as though that rocketing subway were a blindingly fast roller coaster that turns somersaults from start to finish.

During the second quarter earnings call, Elon Musk called on miners to efficiently mine more nickel. According to Musk, nickel miners could be assured of massive contracts with Tesla, provided that their mining practices are efficient and environmentally conscious. If recent reports are any indication, it appears that a Canadian mining company has recently answered the CEO’s call.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Toronto-based Canada Nickel Co. stated that it is poised to build a facility that has the capability to process zero carbon nickel. The need for such a product was highlighted by Canada Nickel Chief Executive Officer Mark Selby to the publication. “The electric vehicle chain and broader market in general is crying out for zero-carbon product,” he said.

Goodbye gas stations.

During the second quarter earnings call, Elon Musk tentatively confirmed that Tesla would be making a compact car and a vehicle with high capacity. Granted, it would probably take a few more years before such vehicles are produced, but one thing seems certain. Considering Tesla’s speed and pace, it would not be surprising if Tesla’s compact car and high capacity EV causes the extinction of the internal combustion engine.

Tesla’s current lineup of vehicles, which comprise the Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y, are great EVs, but they are still fairly large for their class. This includes the Model 3 and the Model Y, Tesla’s “smaller” vehicles in its lineup. This, together with the vehicles’ premium price, end up blocking the company from reaching its full potential in the auto market. With a compact car and a high capacity vehicle, however, things could drastically change for Tesla.

Continue reading “Tesla’s next vehicles have the potential to usher in the extinction of gas cars” »

Interesting.

Audi has announced that it is testing out bidirectional charging technology for electric cars, this would incorporate the electric car into the domestic power grid and could provide additional power to the grid when not in use.

Continue reading “Audi is testing out bidirectional charging technology for electric vehicles” »

The $5 billion XpressWest project will connect Southern California to Las Vegas with electric trains traveling up to 200 miles an hour.

Apple, the world’s largest technology company by revenue, is already carbon neutral for its corporate facilities, a goal achieved in April 2020. However, the consumer electronics giant now intends to make every product and its entire supply chain – from manufacturing to transportation to end-of-life material recovery – net zero by 2030.